rubbish, and a great number of private and public buildings. The task was sufficiently Herculean, and it was rendered the more so by the want of means; for Mr. Pittakes, like the hero of old, had to clear the Augæan mass with little or no aid from the government or the Society. Notwithstanding the many obstacles in the way of the ConservatorGeneral, the whole epipedon or level of the Acropolis has been cleared; every abomination has been thrown out; and so completely has this work been done, that the different divisions and the original pavement of the Acropolis may be now seen, even by the inexperienced in antiquities; and while the ground has been disencumbered of those objects which impaired the proportions of the temples and the monuments, the work has been attended with the further advantage of recovering such fragments of art as had been spared by time and the impious spoilers. Among these are pedestals of statues, friezes, altars, inscriptions, and other relics of art, which, though effaced and mutilated, are in many instances of great historical value. Nor are these fragments few, or altogether deficient in intrinsic merit. The gallery to the left of the Propylæa, two or three rooms to the rear of it, five or six vaulted cells, and a great portion of the open space between the Propylæa and the Parthenon, are literally filled and strewn with the fragments of this great store-house of sculpture. In the upper rooms of one of the private buildings still standing, there is a large and interesting collection of vases and urns, worthy to stand by the works of the great sculptors. Some of these terracota creations are so light' in substance, and so graceful in form, as to claim for the old pot-makers of Greece a place in the pantheon of her artists. In the different collections, and in various parts of the Acropolis, there are many bas-reliefs and alto-relievos of admirable execution. Most of these belong to the ornaments and the friezes of the different temples in the Acropolis, and are therefore doubly interesting; but among them there is one intrinsically and superlatively beautiful. This relievo represents the Goddess of Victory in the attitude of tying her sandal. She has lost her head, and yet she is so perfectly captivating, so like a thing of life and feeling, that the memory of her light and graceful form haunts me like a revealed mystery of the beautiful. Fortunately, the blocks of marble which were parts of the temples themselves, having nothing to excite the cupidity of the spoilers, and being too heavy for transportation to northern climes, were left to lie among the rubbish, and are now at the disposal of the artist. The shafts of the columns, their capitals, and the blocks which belong to the north and south sides of the Parthenon, lie in one confused mass; and though no effort of man is perhaps sufficient to renovate the "shattered splendour" of this matchless temple, the taste and ingenuity of experienced artists may be so far successful as to replace the fallen fragments in their original positions, and thus fill out at least, or restore its proportions. This has been successfully attempted with the temple of Victory, and there is no reason why it cannot succeed to a certain degree with that of Minerva.* The latter, like the former of these temples, is now in a process of restoration, and there is something interesting even in the partial success that has attended the enterprise; there is something both cheering and emblematic in this restoration of the Greek temples by the hands and under the auspices of the modern Greeks. Should the now fallen columns of the Parthenon rise, and the now absent * In a late number of the Aiov, an Athenian newspaper, is a very interesting description of the Acropolis, and in connection with it the following remarks on the restoration of the Parthenon: "Mr. Pittakes, our able archaeologist, took us to the Parthenon, and after pointing out the position of the Chryselephantine statue of Minerva-the godlike creation of Phidias-and that of the altar in the interior of the shrine, he then showed us the corner stone of the Parthenon. This of course lies where it was placed by the hands of Pericles, and conceals under it all those treasures which our ancestors were accustomed to deposit under the corner-stones of their public edifices. Here they have been lying for the last two thousand and three hundred years, and here they will lie till the majestic Parthenon and time will be no more. We can hardly go to the Acropolis without having occasion to wonder at what is going on, and how can it be otherwise when one after another of the fallen pillars are rising under the auspices of the Archæological Society and the exertions of Mr. Pittakes. Two of the fallen pillars, with their capitals, are standing where they were placed by the hand of Ictinus. The idea of restoring the Parthenon is truly a bold and a great idea!" gods return to the pedestals they once occupied— as it is to be hoped they may-the whole civilized world will have occasion to rejoice in the triumphs of modern Greece. CHAPTER IV. THE KING AND QUEEN OF GREECE. A FEW days after our arrival in the capital of Greece, and while rambling in the suburbs of the town, we had the pleasure of meeting their Majesties; but as they swept by us hurriedly, I only saw that King Otho, who appeared very youthful, wore the Greek dress, and that his Queen sat well on her spirited Arab, and looked both young and pretty. They were accompanied by a few attendants, and the absence of everything like show and stir led me to the conclusion that they were wise enough to conform to the state of the country, and that the novel sight of a king and a queen had grown familiar with the Greeks. But while there were no boisterous "zetos," and no servile prostrations, there was no want of respect or deference on the part of the people. They seemed to be proud of their king and his consort. The degenerated sons of Greece, however, were by no means as obsequious in their salutations to their Majesties as some of the refined Europeans. The Greeks, for example, would stop just at the moment when the royal cortege was |